the only woman among them, but the group of nobles parted before her like the Red Sea. Rumor said that Lord Andrews lived in mortal fear of his wife, but he was hardly alone in that; no man in the Tearling wanted Lady Andrews’s notice, let alone her enmity. She stalked toward Lord Williams and planted herself before him: a pretty woman, if no longer young, with her hands on her hips.
“I paid good money for a read on the harvest, Williams. Is that what I paid for?”
“I will reimburse you,” Williams said, almost humbly. Lady Andrews continued to stare at him for a long moment, and Williams added, “Plus twenty pounds for your trouble.”
She nodded coldly and then turned to her two retainers.
“Let’s get out of here. This place stinks.”
They went off through the crowd. Several more nobles left in their wake, but most of the group simply stood there, staring blankly at the dead crone who lay beside the wall. Williams bent to examine the corpse, then turned to Lord Carvel, his eyes blazing.
“I told you to grab her, not kill her! Why in God’s name did you do that?”
“These tunnels echo. She was making too much noise.”
“But where am I going to find another seer? She was worth her weight in gold!”
Carvel shrugged, unmoved.
“Perhaps all is not lost.” Lord Gosselin had moved up now, putting a soothing hand on Williams’s arm. That was not surprising, either; Gosselin was always the placator, the peacemaker.
“It’s well known that the sight runs in families,” Gosselin continued. “Did your seer have any children? You might—”
“She did,” Williams muttered. “But I sold the baby, years ago, long before I knew what Orra was. They were looking for girls, paying well—”
“She’s gone!”
Miles spun around with the rest. The stone slab stood empty, a bright circle of light in the middle of the room.
“The whore!” Williams shouted. “Christ, she saw it all! Find her! Check the tunnels! Go!”
Nobles scattered in all directions, drawing swords as they went, and Williams followed them, one hand holding a sword and the other still clasped to his bleeding face. Miles, who had no intention of charging off into that lightless labyrinth, was left behind. He thought he was the only one, but after a moment he realized that Lord Gayel had stayed as well. Gayel was a neighbor in the central Almont, owner of vast tracts of wheat. He was by no means a friend, but not an enemy either. They stared at each other across the stone slab.
“What a cock-up,” Gayel remarked, fastening his cloak. “I should have never gotten involved with this business.”
“Nor I,” Miles admitted.
“Well, at least Williams will not have the advantage over us any longer.”
They turned toward the corpse. The floors in the Creche were nowhere near level; blood had run from the seer’s cut throat to end up almost halfway across the room. Her white eyes stared at them, truly blind now, and yet Miles did not like to meet her gaze, any more than he had before.
“Do you think they’ll find the girl?” he asked Gayel.
“I don’t think it matters. She was poppied out of her mind, and even if she did remember anything, who would believe her? She was just a pigeon from the Alley.”
“But surely someone will want her back.”
“No. Ellens bought her outright.”
Miles nodded, relieved. His only worry was that the story might get back to Queen Arla somehow, but Gayel was right; no one cared about the words of a Creche whore.
“Come on, Marshall. Let’s get out of this place. The Andrews bitch was right about one thing: it reeks.”
Miles nodded. But he could not resist a last look back at the body on the floor. The seer’s head was thrown backward, her eyes still seeming to stare across the room. Miles turned quickly, following Gayel into the tunnels.
Gayel knew his way; he came down here to watch the fights, and Miles followed him confidently through the tunnels as they branched, met, and then branched again. The two of them talked of home, of the drought, of Lord Doleran’s problems with his new wife, who was known to have an eye for young servingmen. But even as he gossiped and laughed, Miles was thinking of the old woman, trying to remember exactly what she had said. She had talked about the True Queen, he knew that, and about ships, and something about the queen of spades. Miles was a good poker player, and he knew the spade